Florida has an overabundance of politicians, regardless of party affiliation, that are irredeemable.

Term limits are adopted and what happens? Representatives run for the Senate and Senators run for the House, making 8 years become a lifetime. Campaign contribution limits are established and then go by the wayside because of unregulated PACS. There is no end to pols telling us they are in our corner while ignoring our will. Just look at how clean our waters are.

But the most egregious trick that pols use to stay in office is the write-in loophole.

In 1998, Floridians went to the polls and passed a constitutional amendment guaranteeing all voters could participate in a primary if the winner would face no opposition in the general election. In 2000, the professional politicians, who cannot stand not to be collecting your tax dollars in salaries and perks, instituted a brilliant idea to thwart this amendment’s intent. A state agency under the guise of making it easier to run for office then revolutionized the concept of the write-in candidate.

Write-in candidates do not pay filing fees or collect signatures to get on the ballot. They usually do not send out mailers, participate in voter forums, knock on voters’ doors or do anything else a candidate would do. They are simply on the ballot to make sure that half the electorate have no say in who represents them.

Sometimes these fake candidates are the spouses or other relatives of someone running for the position. The write-in candidate will campaign dutifully with his wife while at the same time purporting to be a political opponent. This makes a mockery of our democracy. It is a sham similar to Putin’s state-allowed opposition.

This issue is not about party politics but about dirty politics. It happens with the same frequency in Democratic as in Republican races. It is a tool to keep self-serving pols in office by disenfranchising a majority of voters within the district. It contributes one more reason for citizens to be cynical about the electoral system.

Recently Sherry Plymale, a Republican, and Dave Aronberg, a Democrat, were both interested in ending the write-in. Sherry was a Constitutional Revision Commissioner and Dave a concerned citizen and elected official. They worked to introduced an amendment that would have ended the practice. It was narrowly defeated by the members on the last day of the Commission.

There shouldn’t need to be a constitutional amendment to make sure that Florida voters are not disenfranchised. That should be the job of the Florida Legislature. Oh! I forgot for a moment. The members of the legislature are politicians first and public servants second.